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    Beyond the Wall of Resistance Excerpt

    Beyond the Wall of Resistance Excerpt

    This excerpt shows frustrated managers how to transform the power of resistance into a positive force and help you see ways to create your own change management tools.

    On February 1, 2003, the Shuttle Columbia burned and was destroyed on reentry into
    the Earth’s atmosphere. An independent commission was appointed to examine the cause of
    the accident and make recommendations. They wrote that they “intended to put this
    accident into context.” The report went onto say, “We considered it unlikely that the
    accident was a random event; rather it was likely related in some degree to NASA’s
    budgets, history and program culture, as well as the politics, compromises, and
    changing priorities of the democratic process. We are convinced that the management
    practices overseeing the Space Shuttle Program were as much a cause of the accident as
    the foam that struck the left wing.”

    If we are looking for one thing—say the technical reasons why an accident
    occurred—we will limit what we see and risk missing something equally or more
    important. By forcing ourselves to look more broadly and ask, “What else could it be?”
    we expand the frame and allow for a broader and even deeper understanding of the
    problem or problems.

    When the world economic crisis hit in 2008, we—the press and the
    public—looked for who was responsible for this meltdown. We had to have a
    villain. And there were villains, but by solely focusing on the cheats and crooks, it
    distracted us from looking at the underlying causes of the crisis. Complexity came
    later. Context matters.

    This excerpt comes from Chapter 5 (“Context Matters”) of Rick Maurer’s
    Beyond
    the Wall of Resistance: Why 70% of Changes Fail — and What You Can Do About
    It
    (Bard Press, 2010). This book shows frustrated managers at all levels
    how to transform the power of resistance into a positive force. The book includes tools
    for managing organizational change and will help you see ways to create your own change
    management tools.

    The attached Zip file includes:

    • Intro Page.doc
    • Cover Sheet and Terms.pdf
    • Beyond the Wall of Resistance Excerpt.pdf

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